Pakistan is the only country where e-filing of sales tax and federal excise returns has been made mandatory by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the taxpayers. Tax experts told Business Recorder on Friday that the best international tax administrations like UK have provided optional e-filing facility to the taxpayers.
It seemed that Pakistan is the most advanced country in automation of authentic database of taxpayers where the government has introduced compulsory e-filing for all the registered taxpayers.
Other most developed nations are still using manual system of filing of returns. Even India has not made e-filing mandatory for the taxpayers, but the FBR had directed all taxpayers to compulsorily file returns, electronically.
Resultantly, the e-filing system has failed to respond to the taxpayers on August 15 due to overloading of data. The web-based system is not accepting the fresh enrolments and return filers were also facing problems throughout the day. A large number of taxpayers simultaneously access the web-portal which created panic-like situation among the taxpayers.